Sunday, January 25, 2015

Maybe my favorite bad review

I've posted this before, years ago, but it's one of my all-time favorites. Do you remember a comedian named Gallagher? I think he's still around. His basic act was smashing watermelons. When he performed in Cerritos, California in 1999 the LA Times reviewed it. The review was so hilarious and scathing I had to keep it. And share it. If you can imagine the thinking that
could have produced such a staggeringly ill-conceived show, you laugh
twice as hard.

And so, as a public service to anyone even thinking of attending an upcoming Gallagher show if he's still touring, here is this LA Times review.CROSSED-UP CROSSOVER

Comedy: Promoted for Latinos, Gallagher's pseudo-Spanish show is a litany of degrading stereotypes and insults.By ALISA VALDES-RODRIGUEZ, Times Staff Writer

Hmm.
How to put this delicately? We'll simplify: Mime-like, stringy-haired
man in black hat smashes food with mallet on stage for living. Man, who
no espeakey no Spanish, hears Spanish, thinks Spanish good, Spanish muy
muy dinero. Man spends one month learning important Spanish words such
as cerveza, caca and culo (butt). Man invents Spanish words, such as
"sperm-o" and "embarazamante." Man decides this is enough Spanish to put
on show for Latinos. Man smashes pinatas, wears giant sombrero and
shakes keg-sized maracas. Man mocks Jews and gays and women and
constipated old people. Man thinks he is muy funny comedian-o.

Man
rents hall in Cerritos. Man advertises "Gallagher en espanol: La Fiesta
Grande" on Spanish radio. Man hopes thousands will come. Two hundred
come, many with children and babies and old (possibly constipated)
people. Man babbles for three hours Thursday night in "language"
neither English nor Spanish. Language heretofore known as
Gallagher-bonics. Next day, executive director of Cerritos Center for
Performing Arts issues statement stressing that "Gallagher show was a
rental event and not produced or presented by the Cerritos Center."

First nine rows of
audience are in white plastic chairs. People in white plastic chairs
equipped with clear plastic bag to wear over clothes because later
mayonnaise and refried beans will spew over them. Signs warn: Cuidado,
Piso Resbaloso. Wet floor. Man shoots water on audience from giant
penguin after salsa dancers leave stage.

Other man named Vic
Dunlop, a comedian hired to help because he supposedly speaks Espanol,
takes stage. Dunlop wears Mexican blanket, sombrero and glasses with
eyes painted on them. Makes jokes about black people and blind people in
bad Spanish. Says show is sponsored by Culo Cola, the soda with the
taste of an expletive. In audience, Debra Garcia, 50, is bored and
thinks the show immature and plans to leave early.

Second
assistant "comedian" who actually does speak Spanish comes on stage.
Her name is Dyana Ortelli and she is Mexican American and makes a living
mocking Jennifer Lopez's bottom, stereotyping Chicanos, and wearing bad
wig and no pants. Ortelli helps man throw chocolate at crowd. Man says:
"Quien no tengo chocolate?" Translation: Who I don't have chocolate? No
one sure what he is saying.

Man calls
for rock band. Fulano de Tal, from Miami, plays well. Man wears giant
parachute dress and dances. Man spray-paints a lie on the back wall: Yo
No Soy Gringo. Man says in Spanish that he is a cowboy. Man says he is
newborn Mexican and caresses his naked hairy belly.

Man begins dumping buckets of food
onto plates. Man stops trying to speak Spanish. Man gives up and speaks
English. Man says: "We were expecting a big crowd tonight and we're
going to do a show for a big crowd anyway" because the crowd is small
and shrinking. Man is booed again. Man yells: "It's the Fourth of July
weekend, you don't got no place to go so just shut up." Man hits Pop
Tarts with tennis racquet. Man says "Un muchacho quiero comer," which
means "I want to eat a boy" and the boys look scared.

Many people
who paid between $21.50 and $26.50 per ticket walk out as man flashes
white underpants and yells culo, culo, culo and cerveza. Man angry
Latinos have no sense of humor. Man throws egg and marshmallows at old
woman and baby as they waddle out of theater. Man calls old woman vulgar
name in English. Man spits beer on children. Some in audience too
polite to leave. Others impolite enough to boo. One courageous enough to
hurl a lunchbox-sized chunk of watermelon at man's head.

Is he or isn't he? Still smashing watermelons or tacos or even culos? Well, Ken, thanks to your "memory flogger" I Googled ol' Gallagher. And, guess what? He apparently is still out there, doing the comedy club circuit in upstate New York and vicinity. Check him out: http://www.gallaghersmash.com/Remind me to put watermelons and a sledge hammer on my shopping list.

Unfortunately, Gallagher is coming to my hometown of Everett, WA in a few weeks. Might be a good time to head north to Vancouver BC for the weekend as we only live 8 blocks from the theater and I don't want to take the chance on getting sprayed with rotting watermelon.

Clarks: if he's in the northwest that's a bad omen he'll be in OR sometime soon, like at the 7 Feathers Casino. I heard some of his bits on the radio in the 80s and thought he might be a new Stephen Wright because of lines like "What would chairs look like if your knees bent the other way?" I was wrong-o.

I've noticed on M*A*S*H that a few of Margaret's big episodes ("Hot Lips and Empty Arms," for example) were written by Linda Bloodworth & Mary Kay Place. Is it common among writing staffs for certain characters to be assigned to certain writers?

@Joseph Scarbrough - Ken will probably answer you, but I've definitely heard writers talk about how they've found it easier to write for certain characters than others. As a showrunner it would make sense to match writers with their strongest characters as much as possible, and I'm pretty sure that's what Joss Whedon did on BUFFY, but, again, maybe Ken will elaborate.

The show Mystery Science Theater 3000 would sometimes take shots at Gallagher for no obvious reason.

The story goes that when Joel Hodgson (the show's creator/original host) was doing his prop comedy act, he once came off stage and found Gallagher going through his prop trunk. Really bad form if it's true.

I had somehow failed to notice that Mary Kay Place wrote for MASH. I have admired her enormously ever since I first saw her in MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN - she's so multi-talented (acts, sings, writes...)

We had a term for Gallagher at The Comedy Store; the word was "Schmuck." Considering the some of the folks there we liked and got on well with, it tells you how little respect Gallagher got within the stand-up community. Now liked, not respected.

I'm just sorry to see that my friend, the late Vic Dunlop, was mixed up in this comedy abortion. Vic was a talented and very sweet man.

Irony...Gallagher rated the 100th best standup of all time by Comedy Central. Gallagher complains the rating is too low.

This Gallagher (Leo) sued his brother (Ron) because Ron was putting on shows that may have led the audience to believe they were getting Leo, not Ron. Attendance at Ron's shows have gone up, since it has been made clear to prospective ticket buyers that they won't be seeing Leo.

I remember when this Gallagher review appeared in the LA Times, and though I haven't seen it again until now or thought of Gallagher himself since, this review now and then churns back in my memory because the writing was just so, well, memorable. It is not at all surprising to find it reproduced here.

I remember back in 1990 or '91 when Jay Leno was guest hosting for Johnny Carson, and one night he said that a Soviet leader (I forget if it was Gorbachev or Yeltsin or somebody else) had announced that he would be doing a tour of the United States. Then Jay said "The bad news is, he's opening for Gallagher."

I think Gallagher's star faded when he started inserting racial jokes in his act. Sort of like Ted Nugent does, like when he was doing a concert in Austin, Texas and even though at least 20 percent of the crowd was Latino, Nugent said things like, "Don't you wish they''d all go back to Mexico?" Except Gallagher's stuff was apparently worse.

I read once many years lack that there was a Broadway production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" that was so horrible that when the Nazis entered to house, audience members yelled out, "She's in the attic!"

About KEN LEVINE

Named one of the BEST 25 BLOGS by TIME Magazine. Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer. In a career that has spanned over 30 years Ken has worked on MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS, WINGS, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, BECKER, DHARMA & GREG, and has co-created three series. He and his partner wrote the feature VOLUNTEERS. Ken has also been the radio/TV play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres. and Dodger Talk. He hosts the podcast HOLLYWOOD & LEVINE

Ken Being Social

Ken's Book Club

A collection of long-form Levine

MUST KILL TV: Ken's explosive and hilarious satire of the TV industry - now in paperback and Kindle